El Paso Not so Bad
Written by Jon on 05 April 2010
We pedaled on through Easter Sunday and everyone was celebrating. Easter is a huge holiday for the Hispanic population. I smelled barbeque all day long as we passed many houses. We arrived in a town and I asked some locals in front of a church where I could get some of this barbeque. They said, “That backyard barbeque and you can’t buy it in restaurants around here.” I was heartbroken and pedaled on in search of something good to eat. Unfortunately, everything in town was closed for the holiday so we continued on. We got to Socorro and chatted with a guy for awhile in front of the Family Dollar store. We told him how everyone had advised us to take the loop around El Paso for safety reasons. He laughed and said El Paso is not as dangerous as people make it seem. He said if we took the bypass it would be close to 10 miles longer and we would have to climb a mountain. We took his advice and decided to just ride through the city. We had to settle on Burger King as it was the only restaurant open. We got into the heart of El Paso and realized we had missed a turn. We started talking to locals and got different directions from all of them. After about an hour of this we finally got back on track. Andrew started having a major flat problem with his rear wheel toward the end of the day with about 7 flats total. We were out of tubes and only had one patch left. The goal was to make it to New Mexico, but we had to settle on a hotel room in El Paso on Mesa Street. We both are unsure of why people talked like El Paso was so dangerous. The part we are in is a very nice area with very nice people. They told us there is a Wal-Mart 2 miles up the road so we will be buying some patches and tubes in the morning.